I told you what I thought. If you have a better answer.. I'd love to hear it
Sorry, sorry, didn't
exactly mean it that way (so hard to type and read accurate tone on internet forums :icon_wink )
So the consensus I'm drawing from everyone's posts is that because professors spend their lives in their "ivory towers" (yes, I've heard the term before) and never held jobs in the "real world," they're liberal. Ok, let's discuss this.
I find it very interesting that people who have devoted their entire lives to teaching and the pursuit of knowledge through science vote (predominately) for Democrats. I also find it very telling that (some) Republicans seem to go completely out of their way to distance themselves as much as possible from the more highly-educated people in our society (the professors and scientists). I remember seeing graphs as part of a study from a few years ago. Long story short, one of the graphs plotted gun ownership versus education level. The lower one's education level, the more likely that person was to own guns. A separate graph plotted gun ownership and people who vote Republican. The more guns one owned, the more likely they were to have voted Republican. Now, combining the two graphs, and well -- you see what I mean.
To be fair, we should also tackle the opposite question: Why do people vote Republican? (Hey, I've actually got a thoughtful answer here!). I think a large part of it has to do with how the Republicans have been able to use political language in order to frame issues in such black and white terms that they take what were once complicated, nuanced debates, and make them into two starkly polarizing options. The Estate tax becomes the "Death tax." Anti-abortion becomes "Pro-Life." Pro-death [penalty] becomes "Tough on crime." See what I'm getting at here? By using political language (someone dig up a link to Orwell's famous essay) in this way they've reshaped the debate so Democrats can't possibly compete. TV "debate" shows like Crossfire and Hardball simply play into the Republicans hand because those shows attempt to determine who is
winning , not who is is being
truthful. What weve got is a stacked system where the very words, the very
language used to convey ideas is manipulated so conservatism subconsiously takes root in the public consciousness. It's utterly brilliant, and then you add in the majority of elected Democrats who are spineless bastards who won't won't/can't counter the Republicans with any counter-strategy of their own.
Well, that was a long post, but what do you think?
Patmack: Hey,
you're the one who has a cat in the first place! :icon_tong